This kind of snow cart is generally known from Japanese published patent applications Nos. Sho. 57-15074, and Sho. 55-136677.
Caterpillar drives are known to be provided in the front and rear of the main body of the cart, the front caterpillar drive is usually steered by a handle, or the snow cart is driven by the rear caterpillar drive, and a ski-shaped guide board as a rudder is provided in the front. The ski-shaped rudder is steered by a handle during travel on the snow.
Such conventional snow carts are large, heavy and therefore are expensive, and are generally used for transporting heavy objects or for high speed travel. They have been mostly used for patrolling or amusement of ski slopes. As the load on the main body of the cart is supported only by the caterpillar drives in large snow carts, the caterpillars can sink into soft, deep snow making travel difficult or even impossible. This was ameliorated in the prior art by extending the length of the main body and of the caterpillar drives and thus increasing the snow contacting surface of the drive. Therefore, a size reduction of such carts was generally not possible.
The same problems were encountered in smaller snow carts such as snow mobiles, the load on the main body of the cart is supported by the caterpillar drive, and the guide board steering rudder, its handle and the related coupling mechanism are firmly attached to the front of the main body of the cart. Therefore such carts are too long, such as to fit them into the trunk of a passenger car.
Conventional snow carts are designed to be driven by a driver. Therefore, if a driver skis down from a mountain top which was ascended by a snow cart, the mountain will have to be scaled by foot or by a passenger of another driven cart to recover the cart left on the top.